We are always pleased to support the activities of young scholars who are interested in bioethics. This link is a timeline of the Supreme Court case Gonzales vs. Oregon. It was prepared by Ms. Maggie Kirby who attends high school at U-32 in Vermont. It does a terrific job of documenting this important bioethics case and binging awareness to the ongoing debate about physician-assisted suicide. Great work Maggie!

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.

On March 30, 2015, the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) House of Delegates – the group’s representative assembly – adopted a policy discouraging pharmacists from participating in executions. The APhA policy is only one sentence long: “The American Pharmacists Association discourages pharmacist participation in executions on the basis that such activities are fundamentally contrary to the role of pharmacists as providers of health care.”

In defending the new policy, APhA Executive Vice President and CEO, Thomas E. Menighan, BSPharm, MBA, ScD (Hon), FAPhA, stated, “Pharmacists are health care providers and pharmacist participation in executions conflicts with the profession’s role on the patient health care team. This new policy aligns the APhA with the execution policies of other major health care associations including the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the American Board of Anesthesiology.”

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.

On the very last day of the 2014 legislative session, the New York Senate passed “The Compassionate Care Act” (S.1682-A, Savino) approving the legalization of medical marijuana. The Assembly had previously passed a companion bill (A.6357-A, Gottfried). The Senate bill has been sent to Governor Cuomo for his signature. The governor endorsed the bill in the legislature, but as of July 4, 2014, has yet to sign it.

New York medical marijuana proponents have been advocating for the availability of cannabis for several years. Neighboring states Connecticut, New Jersey, and Vermont, and 18 other states and the District of Columbia currently allow medical marijuana. However, last minute compromise changes to the New York law will severely restrict access to medical cannabis. In fact, the limitations are so rigid that some might say the bill is a hallow shell, a sham, one designed to appear to allow medical marijuana yet really not. Regardless of how one feels about medical cannabis, to hype the public into believing that marijuana will be available for medical purposes and then establishing barriers to its accessibility that is a fraud. It would be unconscionable to raise the hopes of distressed patients, many suffering with chronic and painful conditions, only to see those hopes dashed.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.

The ongoing VA scandal is indeed unfortunate and sad. In a speech on May 30, 2014, in Washington, DC, Eric K. Shinseki apologized for the “systemic, totally unacceptable lack of integrity” shown by some administrators in managing the Veterans Administration health care system hospitals and clinics. Within hours of the apology, Secretary Shinseki resigned.

It is clear that the trouble within the VA has been brewing for some time. The fuse that set off this latest explosion may have been whistleblower claims that managers at the Phoenix VA Medical Center were keeping two sets of books which logged wait times for veterans seeking primary care appointments. There are allegations that some of the delays resulted in veteran deaths. Acting VA Inspector General Richard J. Griffin issued a preliminary report confirming that Phoenix VA administrators had manipulated wait times possibly to assure more favorable annual performance reviews and higher bonuses and compensation for staff. The unethical behavior by those entrusted with the care of our veterans is inexcusable.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.

Last month, a New Mexico trial court judge ruled that a terminally ill patient had a constitutionally protected right to aid in dying from a physician without risking criminal prosecution for assisted suicide. Judge Nan G. Nash of the Second District Court in Albuquerque based her opinion in the New Mexico Constitution: “This court cannot envision a right more fundamental, more private or more integral to the liberty, safety and happiness of a New Mexican than the right of a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying.” Thus, the state became the fifth to permit physician-assisted suicide, following Oregon (1997, approved by voter referendum), Washington (2006, approved by voter referendum), Montana (2009, allowed by state supreme court opinion), and Vermont (2013, enacted by the state legislature).

The case was brought by two oncologists (Drs. Katherine Morris and Aroop Mangalik) who asked the court to clarify the state’s assisted suicide law and allow them write a lethal dose of a drug for a 49-year-old patient (Aja Riggs) with advanced uterine cancer. Critical to the case may have been the December trial testimony from the patient: “I don’t want to suffer needlessly at the end.”

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.

With the endorsement of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) Board of Directors, and the publication of a process to confer eventually a “quality attestation” credential on successful candidates, the ASBH Quality Attestation Presidential Task Force (QAPTF) has begun apilot procedure to assess those involved in providing clinical ethics consultation services. Importantly, it’s unclear at this point if the Task Force will be looking at those who provide consultation as an individual, or as a member of a small group of consultants or as a member of a larger ethics committee.

As part of the pilot to refine the process, the QAPTF has asked those interested to submit a letter of intent. (It is not a requirement that one be an ASBH member to submit a letter of intent.) The Task Force will review the submitted letters and select a representative sample (“a cross-section of eligible candidates whose professions represent the distribution of professions among Clinical Ethics Consultants”).

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.

The law in the United States is clear that once a person has completed their prison sentence and parole they are free to go on and live their lives. The state does not have continued control over them. While some might argue that for sex offenders and regulations regarding where they may live impinges on this, that narrow issue is not the focus of this paper. I will argue that castration, chemical or physical, is antithetical to our society.

The eighth amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Mutilation would be considered cruel and unusual punishment and castration clearly falls under that banner. It involves a surgical procedure to remove the testicles or in women, the removal of their ovaries. One need to look no further than to realize physical castration to control sexual predators should not be permitted.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.

Earlier today, my “in” box began to fill with info from everyone I’ve ever met letting me know that the Supreme Court had ruled on the Myriad case about patenting the breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. I also received a dozen pitches from PR people offering me all manner of instant interviews with lawyers, doctors, bioethicists, and health care analysts.

No one offered me an interview with a geneticist – a person who knows something about DNA. So being such a person myself, I decided to take a look at the decision. And I found errors – starting right smack in the opening paragraph.

“Scientists can extract DNA from cells to isolate specific segments for study. They can also synthetically create exons-only strands of nucleotides known as composite DNA (cDNA). cDNA contains only the exons that occur in DNA, omitting the intervening exons.”

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.

One week ago, the state of Vermont passed legislation allowing Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) in its ‘Patient Choice at End of Life’ Bill. This Bill will protect physicians from criminal liability for prescribing a medication that will hasten a patient’s death, under certain conditions and given certain safeguards. The legislative regime is relatively clear, and its comprehensible provisions can be applauded. Still some ambiguity exists overall about the distinction between PAS and euthanasia, as evidenced by the following headline: ‘Vermont Assisted Suicide Bill: Vermont Gives Euthanasia the Green Light’. The legislation itself does not necessarily do a service to clarify these terms, in its reference to active euthanasia. In this blog post, I seek to clarify some of the legislative regime in Vermont and clarify some terminology around PAS and euthanasia.

Vermont is the third State that has legally permitted PAS, and is the first one to do so by law directly. Oregon and Washington legalized PAS respectively in 1994 (confirmed in 2006) and 2008 after referenda. Montana allowed PAS by a court judgment in 2009, but no Bill has been enacted yet. Vermont’s Bill was crafted with the Oregon legislation in mind. Its current safeguards revolve around record keeping by the physician, its requirements that a patient needs to suffer a terminal illness and have less than six months to live, as well its requirements for a the written statement of a patient (next to two oral ones), and a concurring opinion from a second physician. These safeguards were a compromise to facilitate and speed up the process of the Bill. In 2016 these safeguards will be replaced, and PAS will be governed by professional practice standards, like in other areas of medicine (Provision 5292).

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.

Objections to flu shots among healthcare workers have garnered much recent media attention. Depending on your point of view, the objecting workers might be martyrs for their beliefs or callous villains intent on spreading preventable disease. Regardless, the ethical and legal issues need to be clarified before resorting to simplistic labels.

First, what’s the fuss all about? Healthcare workers around the nation have reportedly refused to take the flu vaccine for a number of reasons. The objections are premised upon personal autonomy or ideology (“Nobody should be able to force me to put anything into my body.”), scientific skepticism (“I don’t believe the flu shot works.”), medical fear (“I may be one who has a rare allergic reaction.”), and/or some variety of religious conviction (“God gave us a body with an immune system, and if we live healthy and pray, we won’t get sick.").

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) admits that the flu vaccine is not 100 percent effective, given the variety of strains floating around out there. In fact, the efficacy of this year’s shot is only about 62 percent. That is not great, but it is far better than nothing. The American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, and CDC all recommend healthcare workers be vaccinated to enhance patient safety.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers a Master of Science in Bioethics, a Doctorate of Professional Studies in Bioethics, and Graduate Certificates in Clinical Ethics and Clinical Ethics Consultation. For more information on AMBI's online graduate programs, please visit our website.